


Syzygy

by Anxiety_Pickle



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dark kingdom worldbuilding, Fantasy Politics, Fictional Mythology, Found Family, Gen, Moon Powers Varian (Disney), Sort Of, The Dark Kingdom (Disney: Tangled), canon rewrite where the Dark Kingdom's culture doesn't just disappear, he's in all the seasons as he should be, king frederick is awful, me? Try and fix the plot structure and morals of this show? it's more likely than you think, references to immigration crisis, varian is in season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28641900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anxiety_Pickle/pseuds/Anxiety_Pickle
Summary: When the Dark Kingdom falls, it doesn't take its people with it.Desperate to prevent the black rocks overtaking the kingdom from causing another tragedy, Varian, Cassandra, and Rapunzel chase an ancient evil and become entangled in a centuries old battle.
Relationships: Adira & Hector & Quirin & Varian (Disney: Tangled), Adira & Varian (Disney), Cassandra & Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Rapunzel & Varian, Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Varian, Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Quirin & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	1. The Dark Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! So, I'm aware this show ended like a while ago but to the seven people still here this is for you!
> 
> So I was disappointed overall with the execution of the first (and second) seasons, along with the mishandling of characters (Varian, Cassandra, the brotherhood) and the mishandling of character arcs (rapunzel, eugene) and my hyperfixation won't let me rest so I've decided to attempt a rewrite where Dark Kingdom culture survives and affects Varian's, and by extension the rest of the crew's, lives
> 
> This is effectively the prologue that establishes the difference from canon, knowing me future chapters will be longer

All around him, the castle trembles, and heaves, and cracks. Age old stone, smoothed by time, spiderwebs with cracks, black like rivers run with ink. The glow of the moonstone, locked away in its cage of obsidian rock, burns away the shadows in the room, so bright that it hurts to look at, burning its presence on the back of his eyes, carving its shape in his memory. 

“Quirin!” Adira snaps, taking his arm. Her touch lights like fire, erupting down his skin. His heart thunders in his head, a hot warhammer in his throat. The first blast of light had almost seemed gentle, before it turned cold, so cold that it burned. 

Black rocks veined with blue erupt from the ground, tearing through the floor and piercing the sky. The ground shakes as it births more and more, clawing for the sky, free of their earthen prison. 

How could the king be so _stupid?_ A hundred years their kingdom has suffered and persisted, couldn’t he have waited just _days_ more? But no, he hunches over the railing, white knuckled grip fixed around the stump where his arm used to be. 

“Get out of here!” He yells. “The three of you - I will stay behind, but you, evacuate the remaining citizens! Prevent the moonstone from falling into mortal hands! My soldiers, _go!”_

Adira turns to run, holding his wrist in her bone-crushing grip. They stumble as the building shakes again. Hector watches on with wide eyes, before he grits his teeth.

“By your orders.”

“Come _on!”_ Adira demands, and yanks them both into the stairwell. 

The polished stone beneath them _crackles._ Dust rains from the ceiling. The railings groan. 

Adira takes the stairs by two, yanking them behind her. The castle groans, and the ground beneath them rearranges itself. Gravity reorients itself all wrong, the impact jarring harshly up his legs, and the three of them careen into the wall. 

Quirin blinks the burning light out of his eyes and steadies the both of them.

“Which sectors haven’t been evacuated?” Adira yells, barely audible over the groan of stone and steel. 

“To the East.” He replies, and almost bites through his tongue when the castle shakes again. These _infernal_ rocks will rip the castle to pieces. He doesn’t want to think about what they’ll do to the citizens who haven't escaped. What they've already done. 

Adira throws the heavy, looming doors open. The sunlight hits at all the wrong angles, forcing itself through the heavy cloud cover rolling over the sky. She inhales sharply, and Quirin turns as another tremor rips through the ground. 

The castle sits wreathed in dark, ancient magic. A backdrop of fanged rocks erupts from behind it, like a hand reaching up from the earth. A pillar of stone smashes through the delicately painted stained glass windows. The windowsill snaps, and stone spills to the ground like blood. 

The color drains from Hector’s face. “We don’t have time for gawking. We have citizens to evacuate. There’s… there’s no more potential for a kingdom here.”

It’s, unsurprisingly, Adira who moves first, movements carefully controlled like a striking snake. “You heard him.” Even so, he can hear the tremble of grief in her voice for a home lost. There's no time for standing around, reveling in the horror of it, though. “Lives are in danger.”

It had to come to this at some point, he knew, but he isn’t ready to mourn this loss. 

And that’s what this is, make no mistakes. They’ve been fighting a losing battle with ancient magic for nearly a century now, and though their inevitable loss was fated in the stars, the reality of it was enough to bring him to his knees.

“You’re right.” He says eventually. He has a duty to his king, to his people. “Let’s go.”

Quirin stands on the funeral pyre of a city. How do you mourn a kingdom?

The city at their back is a mess of twisted black spires shooting through houses, the road, bristling from the castle like needles. Adira crosses her arms and frowns. The red paint on the side of her face sticks out starkly in the light. Reserved for only the most accomplished of warriors, it was strange among the grassy hills swaying peacefully in the breeze, ignorant of the tragedy befallen their soil.

“What now?” Hector asks, narrowing his eyes at the group of refugees trailing behind them.

What now? Yes, what _were_ they supposed to do now? The King hadn't had the forethought to consider that. Most of the people had been evacuated in sectors, led to surrounding kingdoms. But that was unfeasible for a group of their size, with their resources. What were they supposed to do with all these people? And still, there were those left behind, who would rather perish with their homes, and those who had fallen victim to the rocks. 

“Wherever we’re going, we need supplies.” Adira crosses her arm and taps her finger on her arm. “Where do you suggest we take them?”

Even staying on the fringes of the city was dangerous. There was no telling how much the rocks would spread, or if they would follow. The soil out here was healthier than it was anywhere near the inner kingdom. Nothing grew there anymore, no matter the season. The moonstone bled the life out of the soil, the trees, the people. 

“We don’t have enough supplies to go anywhere far.” Quirin sighs. A few farm animals they were lucky enough to have grabbed, bags of rice, grain, fruit. “Most of the farmland hasn’t been infected, has it?”

Adira shrugs. “Not that I know of. That’s good enough. Everyone!” She calls. The crowd shifts nervously, looking upon the ruins of their old home. “We’re leaving! Everyone get ready! Keep an eye on your animals and kids!”

“Speak for yourself.” Hector replies, his sword slung back over his shoulders. “I’m going back to the tree. Someone has to protect it.”

Quirin’s expression hardens. “You can’t be serious-”

Adira holds a hand out. “It’s highly unlikely that anyone will return to the kingdom, and anyone who does _will_ be killed. The rocks aren't to be taken lightly, brother. Your presence is better suited with us.”

He scoffs. “Adira, a life of settlement doesn’t suit you. If you're so quick to neglect the king's orders, then the two of you take care of the people. I’m fulfilling my duty to protect the moonstone.”

Adira purses her lips, "Our duty is to the people, too. It's a fruitless endeavor, Hector."

Quirin sighs. 

“If that’s your choice.”

“I’ll check in with you in a month.” Adira informs him. “To ensure that you haven’t gone and killed yourself.”

He grins sideways. “I appreciate the thought.”

Quirin takes one more look over his shoulder, before starting down the crude dirt path after Adira.

Settling in comes… surprisingly easy to him, all things considered. Farming is an easy, mindless tedium. He doesn’t have to think about the rocks at all. Adira disappears during the day and spars with him at night and speaks of the rocks, her research with Hector that she’s compiling, the chalky ash of a crumbling nation at her hands that she’s desperately trying to prevent. If his fealty to his kingdom is no more- 

Then, well, he supposes he’ll protect the people here. 

The strange dreams subside as they distance themselves from the rocks, though he can never forget them completely, beneath the glare of the moon. 

A woman named Ulla stumbles upon their town. An outsider, with her flaming hair, bright like the sun itself, and eyes blue enough to rival the sky, the freckles scattered across her face like constellations. 

“I’m an alchemist.” She introduces herself. “I came to see if the rumors surrounding the Dark Kingdom were true.”

She fits in nicely, too.

"The sundrop?" Ulla asks, shoving her goggles back over her hair. "It's... King Frederick took it. You've heard, haven't you? His missing daughter, the Princess..."

Impossible, to think something so powerful could be used so _irresponsible_. Unthinkable, absolutely disgusting considering the fate of his own Kingdom. To think that he'd use the sundrop like that and then _lose_ it? It was nothing short of horrifying. Tampering with anything concerning the artifacts was a death sentence. 

"Please excuse me. I have to find my sister."

The marriage is a quiet affair. Ulla’s homeland in the fire colonies do their weddings loud and bright, incompatible with the Dark Kingdom’s traditions of courting and private ceremonies. They have the ceremony in the presence of his people, few of them as there may be left, under the watchful light of the full moon. Adira drops in at Midnight and drops a wood carved necklace in his hands.

“Hector’s wedding gift.” She grins toothily. “He sends his regards.”

“Couldn’t pry him away from his tree?” He grins around a mouthful of warm cherries and bread. 

“Not for lack of trying.” She vaults over the logs arranged around the fire. “Now, where is my new sister?”

“This lifestyle suits you.” Adira mentions offhandedly. The ceramic beads hung around her neck was Ulla’s gift for her twenty fifth birthday. “It’s unexpected.”

Quirin raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

But not for Adira. Her resolve to find what she believed to be a cure for the stones persisted. She was tracking the sundrop, apparently, but had yet to find any promising leads.

“Do you plan to stay here forever?”

He sighs. “Do you still wish to revive the dark kingdom?”

“It will always be my priority.” She admits. “Hector thinks me insane.”

Quirin grins. “Well-”

She swats his arm. “Ah, shut up. I only mean… you want to stay with them? With her?”

“I’m not giving up my post just yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The flames crackle, and she snorts. “You know it isn’t. Don’t play dumb, Quirin, it doesn’t suit you. I’m leaving, and I suspect I’ll be gone a long while.”

This feels like false hope, but who is he to tell her to stop? “I want to stay here, Adira, but I wish you luck in your quest.”

Varian is four when Ulla comes down with the sickness, and when the first of those cursed rocks creep out of the earth bed again. They point away, towards the old capital, the fringe of unearthly destruction still visible over the horizon. When Varian asks what they are, he can’t bear to answer.

It’s only natural, then, that he would underestimate his son’s curiosity.

“Have you seen Varian?” Ulla asks, her bangs sticking to her forehead and the pallor of sickness paling her face. Quirin smooths her hair away from her face. “I’ll go get him.”

Except he isn’t in the living room where he left him, nor is he in his bedroom, tinkering with Ulla’s collection of magnifying glasses and periodic tables and old bits of broken machinery. He isn’t outside near the fence with the sheep, or with their neighbor’s dog. 

_The rocks._

His heart sinks into his stomach, and he makes for the rocks encroaching on the fields, growing larger by the day. Varian is so small it would be easy to miss him, easily to lose him.

“Varian!” He yells. “Varian, where are you?”

A pillar of opaque rock shoots bright fluorescent blue up its spine. He whirls on his heel and crouches to find his son kneeling at the base of the pillar, nestled in the center of a cradle of rocks, one hand pressed to the stone, a strip of hair on his head glowing. 

“Varian!” He hisses, and reaches down to pull him away. He doesn't have the chance to process the horror of seeing that same blue of that day reflected in his son's hair. 

He tips his head back to look at him, his eyes a brighter blue than he remembers them being. “Daddy?”

He backs up from the rocks, shifting him on his hip. “Varian, what were you _doing?_ I told you not to go near the rocks.”

“They were humming.” He mumbles. “I heard them.”

“Never do that again.” He turns away from the rocks, but Varian keeps looking behind them at the rocks that destroyed their home, that are coming to destroy them, too. “Don’t go near those rocks, Varian, _ever._ They’re _dangerous._ ”

“Why?”

“They just _are._ You'll get hurt."

He hurries back to town, trying to swallow his own writhing unease.

There’s whispers of a curse, that the rocks have followed them even here, after six long years of dormancy. Still growing towards their farmland, creeping in the wheat fields, scaring away the animals, Quirin knows that they can’t stay long.

“Where is there to go?” Edith whispers. “What place accepts refugees from the Dark Kingdom?”

“Corona.” Quirin replies quietly, his voice echoing in the hall. The town hall is being stripped bare. Usually for winter they isolate the harvest inside and wait for the worst of the temperatures to thaw over, but this year they don’t have that luxury. “The King will accept refugees.”

The king will recognize their affiliation with King Edmund.

Edith sighs. “The immigration process there is awful. And what of your sister?”

“I’ll send an owl her way. I don’t know when she’ll read the message. By that time we’ll have to move.”

She sighs again. “Quirin… the trip is long. Ulla…”

“I know.” He closes his eyes. “I know.”

They arrive in Old Corona just sy of Varian’s sixth birthday. The farm they settle on, just on the outskirts of the city, just in view of the castle, so starkly different from the one he remembers sitting on the horizon line, is a little like their old one, even if Mom isn’t here.

On the day of his sixth birthday, a woman with half her face painted red arrives at the door. Her clothes remind him of the ones their old neighbors used to wear, and the crest on her hand belongs to the dark kingdom.

“I’m your Aunt.” She explains, holding out a hand for him. “My name is Adira. Do you mind if I come inside?”

After eighteen years of dutifully searching, the crown princess returns to her rightful place in the castle, reunited with her family and kingdom. The celebration lasts days, filling the streets with colorful banners and lanterns and food and music.

If anyone had been witness, they might have reported the sparkling black rocks growing from the earth as they dragged themselves from the depths of the earth.

As it so happens, no one was any the wiser.


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn creeps over the horizon in soft shades of orange and pink, bathing the orchard in warm golden light. Varian’s boots crunch over the dirt path. He kicks at a dislodged pebble, and pokes at the dry around it. It’s… surprisingly dry, considering that it rained not two days ago.

Ruddiger chooses that moment to leap over the hedges with all the energy of a hyperactive toddler, which is far too much for this early in the morning, in his humble opinion.

He wraps around his shoulders like a warm scarf, combating the early chill of Autumn sinking its fangs into the air. Varian absentmindedly scratches him behind the ears.

Apple picking is easier with two people, but Dad is out of town again doing… who knows what, honestly, Varian is just… not worth telling, or something, which is fine! Perfectly fine! It’s just that he’d appreciate the warning _in advance_ so he could’ve asked him to help him pick the apples _before and this would be a lot easier-_

Well, he can let bygones be bygones.

“I gotta get the apples, okay?” He sets the bushel on the step ladder near the base of the trunk. “Don’t eat any of them, okay?”

Ruddiger makes his stupid puppy eyes, and Varian caves immediately.

“You can have the ones we aren’t selling.”

He chirps, placated, and drops to the ground. 

“You’re gonna get chubby if you keep eating all of them.” He remarks as he climbs. Apple picking is, by this time in his life, just about second nature. So is falling off of trees, which is an unfortunate consequence of both gravity and his poor vestibular sense. Ruddiger chitters indignantly. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Wasting time.”

Since Dad _isn’t_ home, that means as soon as he’s done with his chores, he’s free to toy around with the new water heaters he’s working on without arousing any of Dad’s suspicion. 

Twenty minutes later, the apples are carefully arranged and ready to be stored, and the strange, staticy feeling in his fingers is only starting up. He flexes his fingers, frowns, and drops down onto the ground. 

He settles the wicker basket on his hip. “Okay, I’m gonna put this inside, be right back.”

The feeling doesn’t go away. It buzzes at the back of his head like a persistent itch, like the feeling of being watched. He glances over his shoulder as he rolls his heel against the gravel, keeps carefully crouched when inspecting the fencing to ensure that nothing has broken the mesh wire. There’s not much he can do about the dilapidated fence, unfortunately. 

“Anything feel weird to you, bud?” He scoops Ruddiger up, the purring reverberating against his chest grounding. Like eyes burning into the back of his head.

“I guess it’s not a big deal. C’mon, we promised to help Edith.”

He crosses the length of the field. Maisy, one of the neighbor’s sheepdogs, barks as he approaches. At first he thinks it’s at him, but she’s never done that before. She’s just… barking at the ground. Right. 

“You okay, girl?” He calls. She barks again, trods up to the fence, and slobbers all over his offered hand while Ruddiger pouts about the lack of attention. Maisy is quite possibly the only living creature in Old Corona who actually likes him, to put things lightly.

And maybe Edith, but he chalks that up to the fact that he’s sort of useful to her, and she and Dad are from the same place - came from the Dark Kingdom.

Not that he’s supposed to really talk about that, but, what’re they gonna do? Sue him?

Edith’s house is the next one over. She’s the only one around here that has a horse, mostly because she’s the only one who could afford one. His name is Buck, a terribly on the nose name his six year old self came up with, based on his… contentious personality. 

Buck, already unleashed upon the world for the morning, his head swung over the fence and glaring at him from across the field.

Varian rolls his eyes. “I’m not here to braid your hair again, I promise.”

More staring.

_“Or_ hose you down.”

He huffs, but looks slightly less murderous. Ruddiger hisses at him, like an idiot.

“Oh no you _don’t-”_

He grabs him mid-leap. “Stop trying to fight him, you’re not gonna win.”

The door is heavy set, made to resist the cold. He knocks twice, and Edith opens it before he can manage a third. She hobbles forward, a dark shawl wrapped around her head, patterned in diamond shapes that somehow don’t clash with the lightning motif sewn into her dress. 

“Um, uh, hi, good morning. Ruddiger - _don’t eat the napkins-”_

Edith hums something, and her accent curls into her words like rich silk. “Ah, boy, something strange in the air today, yes?”

“Um…” He scratches the nape of his neck, trying to squirm out of her gaze. “I - I wouldn’t know. Is there a dry storm coming?”

Weather forecast hadn't included that, but he doesn’t really trust the divination methods they use up in the castle as far as he can throw them. They’ve also been wrong several times in the past, and cost them a fair bit of crops. 

“Mm. A storm. In a matter of speaking, I suppose.” She muses. “You said you could help with the heater?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” 

A house like this is pretty old, and the framework’s not great for pipework, especially dangerous for the incorporation for something as hazardous as a radiator, but it was better insulation than keeping a fire going inside. 

He kneels next to the pipe, gently shooing Ruddiger off, but he sits up on his hind legs, ears pricked.

“Huh? What’s wrong-?”

He’s cut off by a crash outside, and Buck’s loud braying. He drops his tools on the ground, rushing towards the back door and off the porch-

And in the middle of the field, sits a misshapen pillar of stone. A rock that he’s quite certain hadn't been there fifteen minutes ago. Which means this thing had to have _shot up from the earth_. It doesn’t extend farther than his knee, narrow enough that he could fit both his hands around it if he tried. Buck rears up and backs away from it, startled.

“Hey, hey!” He holds his hands up. “It’s okay!”

The horse paces anxiously around the site where it appeared, approaching Winnie, the only other horse on the farm. 

He kneels down next to it, fascinated. What kind of rock grew in _seconds?_ Some kind of chemical reaction? Had it been just under the surface, and he’d missed it? But what could’ve caused a reaction like that? 

If he listens closely… he can almost hear a… humming, almost. Like wind whistling through something hollow. The frequency echoes high like wind chimes. Perfectly smooth, black as obsidian, no obvious imperfections to be found. It's entrancing, almost, to look at. 

“What _are_ you?”

“Don’t touch them.” Edith calls, making her way down onto the grass. Her expression pinches, the weary lines on her forehead and around her mouth deepening. “And so soon…I knew there was something foul about today.”

“Do you - do you know what they are?”

“An artifact of times long past.” She shakes her head. “Revived again. Your father… ask him. This is a secret that should’ve been buried.” 

Maisy howls in the distance.

“What? Wait, do you know what they are, or what? Is it okay if I test them? Because it looks like this thing just burst up from the earth bed and that’s _fascinating._ Do you think it has anything to do with how weird the dirt’s been lately? And Maisy was freaked out this morning. I heard something about dogs being able to smell illnesses but doesn’t that have more to do with chemical signature and hormones? Unless there was some minute seismographic indication I just couldn’t feel-”

“These rocks are beyond your measures of science, boy.”

He scoffs. “What, like magic? There’s no such thing, just… science we don’t understand yet.” 

She sighs again. “Later. When you’ve spoken to your father. See what he has to say.”

"But he's-"

Edith has never been the best conversationalist, so he isn’t surprised when she stands up and walks away, leaving him with the eighth wonder of the world. 

Something in him wants to touch it, knowing full well that it may be a bad idea. There’s no telling what this thing is, if it’s poisonous, if it’ll burn his skin off, or something awful like that. It doesn’t… seem corrosive, but the grass around its base seems a little withered, and human biology is vastly different from dirt, so he won’t take his chances. 

But what could it be made of? He’s never seen rock that looks like this before, veined with blue, and the scientist in him wants to test it immediately. The more rational side screams, and the back of his neck burns.

Buck makes an uneasy sound, the tap of his hooves on the ground uneven as he throws his mane back over his neck. Varian blinks, and his hand is reaching for the stone, close enough that he can almost touch it.

He yanks his hand back to his chest as if he were burned. 

What was _that?_

Ruddiger chews on his sleeve. He shakes off the unease. 

“Okay, okay.” He mumbles, picking him up. He offers Buck a consoling pat before leading him back to his stall, but the feeling never leaves. 

Just wait for Dad to get home. Yeah, right.

All things considered, Rapunzel would say that she was adjusting _incredibly_ well to the pressures of royal life. Sure, it can be a little… _overstimulating,_ at times, to say the least, but everyone got overwhelmed sometimes, right? And she was entitled to a little bit of that, considering the culture shock that was trying to adjust to any life after years spent in the tower, much less a life like this. And the servants made her wear shoes, which was… uncomfortable, at best.

But the view from her window almost makes up for all of it. The golden light spills through the spotless window onto her covers, warm like Mo- Gothel never was. 

Then the day is laid out in front of her: lessons in law studies and crime prevention, and she has to learn how not to embarrass the royal family and she needs to learn it quickly. Immigration laws later, and the finer workings of the executive branch of government, which is also going to be under her control eventually. Eighteen years worth of lessons crammed into a matter of weeks, no matter how fast a learner she might be, is still an ambitious undertaking. 

“Hey, Sunshine.” Eugene grins as he waltzes in. Cass yanks the lace of her dress tighter. She doesn’t particularly like royal clothes, she decides then. If the tower was good for one thing, it was that all the dresses she wore were loose. “How’s it going?”

“Fitzherbert.” Cass spits with all the cold indifference of a block of ice. “What did I tell you about coming in here while she’s changing?”

“She’s wearing, like, three different dresses.”

“Yeah, Cass.” She breathes a trembling smile. “Isn’t this a little overboard? I'm perfectly decent.”

Cass rolls her eyes. “Please. Any of the nobles would probably faint if you walked out like this.”

Eugene smiles sympathetically. “Still having a hard time, huh?”

“No, no! I’m fine, really!” She smiles nervously. It would be ungrateful not to, even if this new world she’s been thrust into is so big and strange and open, and yet she’s still here, inside the tower-cage, trapped in one role instead of the other, and this time, she doesn’t even have her hair. She has so much now, it just takes a little time to grow into, she’s sure. “Seriously, you don’t have to worry about me, I’m fine!”

“Well, if you say so.”

“Nigel is expecting you.” Cass says, straightening. Her hair is escaping her headdress, and Rapunzel squashes the urge to pin it back. This is the castle, not the tower. Different rules. “He wants to talk about foreign policy.”

Eugene scoffs. “Please, that guy can’t even be civil to his colleagues, and they want him to teach you about _diplomacy?”_

“I’m surprised you know that word.”

“... civil, or colleagues?”

“I think that should answer my question. Run along now.” Cass slams the door shut.

“Hey! Try to get along, please.” She protests weakly. “I’ll see you later, Eugene! Try not to get into any trouble!”

“Me? Trouble? You must have me confused for someone else.”

Rapunzel grins, stands on her toes, and kisses him on the cheek. “See you later!”

Scheduling is not a skill that comes naturally to her.

She wants to paint on the walls, but that’s not allowed, which is something she intends to change when she finally inherits the crown. She wants to do a lot of things, which is kind of the problem. In her days in the tower, there was only endless hours of free time, and she could plan the day’s activities around whatever skill she wanted to teach herself. But now, she was booked for law and public speaking and foreign policy and a thousand other things she couldn’t remember.

Being _nice,_ she learns quickly, is a lot different than being _kind._

This, too, is not a skill that comes naturally to her. She's expected to be nice, she isn't expected to be kind.

(Diplomacy is a kind of manipulation that brings her back to the tower, sometimes. She shoves that thought down as far as it'll go). 

She flips listlessly through her textbook, studying the walls. There’s potential for artwork everywhere. It seems like a waste to keep the walls so blank and devoid of personal touch like this.

… is she being ungrateful again? 

No, no, no, this was still far better than the tower. No walking around on eggshells (unless she was talking to any number of dignitaries or nobles or unless she was in certain situations), and no more fear (unless you wanted to count her hesitation when it came to all of the above, which it totally didn’t count), no more lifetime of longing, tucked far away where she and the world could never interact. 

Except now she has a guard that trails her at all times, that’s probably positioned outside her door. 

Unbelievable.

“It’s fine.” She says to Pascal, perched on her shoulder. “Really. I’m fine.”

(“I love you most, my flower.”)

Her fingers tighten around her pen.

Was it… did Mother ever really love her, or did she love her for what she was?

(Was she right?) 

She tears her hands through her hair.

“I need some fresh air.” She shakes her head, standing up fully. “Do you think… Do you think they’d let me out of here?”

She stands on the balcony overlooking the city. Lantern flotsam and paper pulp sticks brightly in the streets. It’s the time of the year when most celebrations are set, between the festival of lights and the solstice and twelve other ones she’s definitely forgetting. People trudge about in the streets, closing up shop, turning in for the night with their families, their homes.

When she set out after the tower, she hadn't expected a castle or a country waiting for her. She hadn't even expected to _leave,_ really. She’d just wanted some freedom. 

“Well, I guess I’ll never know if I don’t ask.”

What was the worst that could happen?

"I think you're determined to make me lose my job." Cass says, her mouth pressed in a thin line. "If I get caught sneaking you out of here, I'm back on maid duty, and I can kiss my chances of getting on the Watch goodbye-"

"It won't be that long!" She protests, and immediately lowers her voice, despite being in the safety of her room. "C'mon, Cass, loosen up a little? I promise I won't cause any trouble! In and out, and nobody has to know! You know the schedules of the guards so we can get out and get back in."

Her expression doesn't change.

She sighs. _"Please?_ I promise it won't take that long, I just... it's so _stifling_ and I need... I just need some breathing room, okay?"

Cassandra frowns, and then sighs, her resolve crumbling. Rapunzel lights up like the sun. 

"Fine." She sighs. "But for the record, I think this is a bad idea."

Should Varian be out scouring the fields for rocks that were clearly unusual and anomalous in nature at midnight, probably against his father’s wishes? That was a matter of opinion, and Varian was rather firmly seated in his right to investigate. 

He loved his Dad, of course. It was just that he wasn’t always the most… supportive of his interests. Disinterested at best, actively dissuasive at worst. There was no way he’d approve of this kind of behavior; he had, after all, never been one to indulge his curiosity.

(He remembers being ten, asking why they didn’t celebrate the holidays with the rest of the kingdom, why Edith came over to the house during October, why the other villagers looked at him strange even before he’d done anything to warrant their disdain. There had been no straight answer. Everything since he’s unearthed by himself, sieving through conversations and interaction for any little pieces that might inform him about where they come from.

Adira, when she's around, indulges him, sometimes, but talking about the Dark Kingdom upsets her, he can tell).

“Don’t look at me like that.” He whispers to Ruddiger, who paws at his ear. “This is a perfectly reasonable decision. It’s just-” 

He chews on his lip. “It’s just… I need to figure them out, yeah? I know you probably don’t like them, though.” He scratches Ruddiger absentmindedly under the chin. 

Edith’s farm is that way, but something calls him South, instead. He follows the dirt path aimlessly as it turns to grass. Seed from the neighboring pen crunches under his boots. 

His foot skids over something smooth, and decidedly not grass. Maybe a screw or piece that fell off a caravan, or a nail or something equally inconspicuous. 

He kneels down, parting the grass, revealing another rock, this one much smaller than its counterpart. 

“Another one?”

He stares down at it. This one, like the other, tapers off into a sharp point. 

He crouches down, and the eerie, melodic whistle is back. 

Ruddiger jumps off his shoulders and narrows his eyes at it, giving it a wide berth. 

“I should be okay to touch it with gloves, right?” 

Ruddiger grumbles, and his opinion is duly noted. He reaches out to tap it, and it’s smoother than he expected, like it had been coated in oil. No imperfections to be found.

“Woah. This one is so far from the other one… I wonder what’s causing them to grow. Something in the soil? It’s a little colder this year, but nothing else changed.”

He knocks on it with his wrench, listening for variations in the noise it makes. It could be hollow, he hypothesized, and maybe air is being forced out its pores? There’s no gap that he can find, though. 

It’s small enough that he could take it back for examination in the lab. Adira was the only one who ever made a habit of going down there, he could probably hide it pretty easily. 

He grapples at its base, searching for the bottom. He shakes it, but it doesn’t budge.

How far down does this thing go?

He pushes aside the dirt around it, digging down as far as his arm before he finally gives up.

Okay, actually giant rock that hums. Maybe it had been growing, then, and he just hadn't noticed it. But how did it grow?

“Fast growing crystal?” He mumbles, scribbling into his journal. Ruddiger hops into his lap. “That implies extreme heat and pressure, and liquid buildup. But… from under the earth… the pipes, maybe? No, that doesn’t explain how they ended up here.”

The humming of this rock is notably quieter. Maybe it correlates with size? 

The coloring is odd, too. The way it blends into the darkness is… strange, but he refuses to be scared. It’s just odd, considering how starkly the dark lines stood out against the grass and dirt beaten down by hooves and boots. Something to do with reflecting light, maybe? 

He’ll have to check this regularly, to monitor its growth, and whether more will pop up.

That… might be a problem, concerning farmland. 

He winces when he sees a light in the distance.

“Oh no.” He whispers. That’s not Dad, right? He said he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, he _desperately_ hopes that they didn’t make it back quicker than usual. If he wants to get home, he better start running like his life depends on it. 

The light wobbles on through the thicket of trees, and… that’s only one. Definitely not enough for Dad’s group, travelling to the neighboring towns to sell. And he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t be coming through that path - that one was far too small to accommodate all of them, which meant that was a smaller group, maybe a few people.

Not that he had any idea why anyone would want to come to Old Corona at these ungodly hours of night, but considering he was crouching in a field studying a rock, he doesn’t really have any room to judge.

Based on where they’re heading… 

Well, he supposes that’s none of his business. 

“Okay, Ruddiger.” He holds out his arm for Ruddiger to scale. “We should get-”

Something in the distance _bursts._ He inhales sharply through his teeth, rattling in his skull, and Ruddiger digs his claws into his shoulder as he stumbles back. The glow speeds like a shockwave over the field, and then it’s gone, but something in the distance was definitely _glowing._

He stands on trembling legs. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, are they okay?”

Ruddiger leaps off his shoulder and races through the grass, and Varian runs after him.

“Oh no.” Rapunzel whispers, combing her fingers through her long, blonde hair. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” 

Cassandra’s fingers tighten around the hilt of her shattered swords, broken against the jagged teeth of the black rocks standing out from the cliff. Her mind swims with uncertainties - like, what, for example, the ever loving fuck is going on, but the rocks rapidly growing out of the ground, tearing up the earth. 

She grabs her wrist and pulls. “C’mon! We gotta go! Now!” 

Rapunzel’s wrist in her grip, she hurtles over the hill, dragging her after. She can hear the rocks ripping through the undergrowth, and see the blue burning in her peripherals, and then it quiets. 

She stumbles over a rock, and slows to a trot. 

“The rocks, they-!”

Something crashes in the bushes next to them. Cassandra draws her broken sword, well aware that it wouldn’t do much good against any legitimate threat, but what stumbles out isn’t what she expects.

He can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Clearly a local, based on the frayed edges of his clothes, sewing off-color patches together. It would make for a slightly dorky, endearing picture if it wasn’t for the burning glow of his eyes.

And then she blinks, and it’s gone.

“Um!” He squeaks, and an honest to the stars raccoon jumps into his arms. “Um, are you guys okay? What happened, I heard the-”

He narrows in on the seventy feet of bright blonde hair thrown out behind them, and then seems to make the connection.

“Are you-? But-”

Cassandra sighs through her teeth, and stomps forward. They don’t have time to deal with some brat right now, not when the rocks could be right behind them. She’s not sure if she can protect two people instead of one. “How much did you see?” She demands.

He stumbles a step back, and the raccoon hisses at her. 

Bring it on, furball. 

“I - the rocks, you mean? Or… oh, holy shit, that is the Princess.”

“They stopped.” Rapunzel adds helpfully. “And they’re not glowing anymore, so maybe they’re done chasing us.”

“Chasing you?” He repeats, incredulous. Cass pinches the bridge of her nose. “Wait, you saw them move? I’ve been seeing them around the farm, too. What did you do?” 

“I just touched them!” She yelps, holding the hair in front of her like a shield. Right, Rapunzel, threatened by a kid who's barely a teenager and could probably be defeated by a slight breeze. “We didn’t do anything!” 

He blinks, and mutters something.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” He holds the raccoon closer to his chest. “I didn’t say anything. So, um, what are you doing out here, your highness?” He looks at Cassandra. “And fellow stranger?”

“Um, we were-”

Cassandra holds her hand out. “What’s your name, kid?”

“I’m Varian.” He holds the raccoon up. “This is Ruddiger.”

Rapunzel coos, which is an entirely inappropriate reaction for the circumstances. “Oh my gosh is that a raccoon? He’s so cute!”

“Rapunzel!” She snaps. “Stay on topic! Kid, Varian, whatever, if you tell anyone what happened here, you’re dead.”

“Cass!” Rapunzel grabs her hand. “You can’t just threaten people!”

“I just did.”

“Um, it’s okay, it’s fine, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

Cassandra glowers. “You better not.” 

“You said the rocks acted up when you touched them? Could you show me? I’m… studying them, and if they’re not… dormant, then I should probably know because I live, like, right down there-”

“They’re up there.” Rapunzel points. “Are you a scientist, or something?”

“We don’t have time for small talk-”

“I’m an alchemist.” He replies, unperturbed. She’s going to kill both of them. 

“That’s enough. Rapunzel, come on. We need to get you back to the castle.” She stares wearily at the kid. “And you should get home, your parents are probably worried, and there’s no telling if those rocks’ll start acting up again. Get going, kid.”

“Yes ma’am.” 

Cassandra doesn’t stick around to see whether or not he follows her advice. Heartbeat thundering in her ears, she starts walking again, quicker, to where she left the horses.

Rapunzel glances over her shoulder, and Cassandra keeps her eyes strictly ahead. "So, what are we supposed to tell everyone? About my hair?"

She just closes her eyes. "We'll think of something. Cross that bridge when we come to it. Okay?"

Rapunzel takes a deep breath, and nods. "Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter! Obviously I'm changing around a bunch of things, all of which are connected to the way the story is going. Rapunzel's trauma was like... established but nothing happened with it if you know what I mean?? Like it just kinda sat there while the narrative bent backwards so she wouldn't have to actually grow from it. I've also changed up Cass' character arc (not doing whatever tf was season 3) and Varian's complicated relationship with himself, his father, and the Dark Kingdom
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay,” Rapunzel says, hauling herself up over the balcony and stumbling into the room. Avoiding the guard had been one thing, now they need to figure out what they're doing about the _hair_. “Grab the scissors, we need to get _rid_ of this.”

Her head spins with the weight of this knowledge; navigating through the feather-blown thoughts billowing around her like a turbulent crown is impossible. It strikes her deep that the hair is back, that she’s the sundrop again, the idea that she can never escape this, nothing she can do will ever save her, she’s never getting out of that tower-

“Right.” Cassandra grabs the scissors. “How short was your hair before?”

“It doesn’t matter, just get rid of it!” 

To think that just hours ago she’d been thinking about getting it back, about her sense of purpose, a weight on her shoulders and neck, dragging her backwards, like the chains around her wrist as she was dragged back into the tower. 

(“Careful what you wish for,” Mother Gothel says, her voice an airy, condescending falsetto. “It might just come true.”)

Metal screeches and brakes. “Uh oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘uh oh’?”

Cassandra snaps the shattered scissors, and she tears her hands through her hair. “Was it always this… strong?”

“No! It’s - it’s supposed to cut. This can’t be happening.” She rakes her hands through her hair. And just when she’d got used to short hair, she was right back to lugging forty pounds of it behind her, this time with the incredibly inconvenient curse of being _unbreakable._

“Let’s just - try some other things, before we panic.” She turns to the assortment of knives - which is a lot, Rapunzel doesn’t know how much ‘too many knives’ constitutes, but it’s definitely this - before settling on a dagger. “Close your eyes, Princess.”

Cutting it doesn’t work. Taking a _battle axe_ to it doesn’t work, doesn't even damage it. It’s not cutting. 

She’s stuck with it. 

“This is fine.” She says, tugging at her hair. “This is _fine._ Oh, Stars. Cass, what are we supposed to do? Should we tell them? What are we supposed to-”

Cassandra seizes her by the shoulders. “No, Raps, we can’t tell anyone that I snuck you out, I could lose my _job.”_

She fidgets. “But - what are we supposed to say, then? My coronation is in two hours!”

A knock comes at the door.

“Sunshine? Are you in there?”

“Eugene.” She whispers. “I have to tell him.”

“No, no, you can’t! Raps, if I mess this up, your father could literally lock me up. He’s done worse for less.”

She steps back, stricken. “What? He wouldn’t do that-”

The knocking gets louder.

“Coming!” She calls. “Just a minute!”

Cassandra runs a hand through her hair. “You can let him in, you just can’t tell him that I was the one who let you out, or that we were out there at all, okay? I don’t trust that he won’t tell anyone what happened.”

“He wouldn’t do that!” She steps back, and pulls the heavy door open as Cassandra begins the fruitless task of gathering up her hair and arranging it in neat piles. 

Eugene steps inside, takes one look at her, and freezes in place. Rapunzel strong arms him inside, shutting the door tightly behind her and bolting it shut. "Um…. Surprise?"

"You-" he says, putting his face in his hands before collapsing back into the soft, velvety upholstery of the chair. "You've really got a knack for getting yourself tangled up in these messes, don't you?"

She smiles, though it feels more like a wince, a shoddy knife wound cut across her face. "That's one way of putting it."

Cassandra lets Fitzherbert have his panic while she considers their next move. They still have the coronation to prepare for, after all, and there’s no conceivable way to conceal that much hair. 

“Rapunzel.” She announces. “Go get dressed. I have an idea.”

The coronation was, honestly, the least of their problems. The number of public appearances she would be making _after_ the coronation was the problem. This was mostly a conciliatory gesture to appeal to the upper echelons, the kind of nobles whose silence was easily gained. The numbers were controlled, the guests listed on carefully written invitation cards, all easily monitored. Even among them, this secret could be kept. But throughout the rest of the week’s festivities, she was marked for several more appearances to endear her to the public, and there was no hiding that hair from the rest of the kingdom.

“We’re pretending it’s a wig.” She says, tending to the sleeves of the carefully sewn dress. “Because it fits the story better - she’s more recognizable like that.”

“That’s the best we’ve got?” Fitherbert asks incredulously.

“I don’t hear you coming up with any ingenious ideas.” She snaps back. “For now, we only have to deal with the private ceremony. Less people to convince, more time to come up with something better.”

“Do you think anyone will really believe she just woke up like that?”

“You believe that.”

Fitzherbert scowls at her. “I know Rapunzel, and I know there’s something she’s not telling me. And that’s fine! She can tell me when she’s ready! I’m going to respect her boundaries! You, on the other hand, are a _liar.”_

“Oh, _I’m_ the liar?”

Their conversation is cut off as Rapunzel staggers into the room. “I don’t think I can wear these heels.”

“It’s fine, we can bind your feet with ribbon, nobody can even see them anyways.” Fitzherbert replies. Cassandra stands to adjust the high collar frilled around her neck. 

“We have fifteen minutes. Are you ready to go?”

She sighs. Her agitation rolls off her in waves. “As I’ll ever be.”

The party blooms around them, already in full swing. The ballroom is crowded with nobles, swaying to the orchestral, atmospheric music playing in the background. Purple banners grace each doorway, complemented by bouquets of bellflowers and begonia. She feels under dressed in comparison to the fine, rich fabric surrounding her. 

Some guests gave Rapunzel a surprised once over as she entered, as did the King and Queen, but no one made any comments about it. 

Fitzherbert fidgets across from her, hip bumping the banquet table. So far, everything is going… fine. No one has caught onto the ploy yet, although the Queen had cast Rapunzel a worried look as she hurried across the floor to join her parents on the podium, where her crown awaited.

A passing couple stares at them oddly. Cassandra supposes they must look out of place. The nobility all know each other, having been brushing elbows in their individual pots of wealth for as long as she can remember. Being the Captain’s daughter affords her some prestige, but the Watch isn’t nearly as renowned upon the wealthy, and, adopted as she was, she didn’t share enough physical traits with him to signal to any of them her status.

The princess herself looks a touch uncomfortable, with the weight of authority resting on her shoulders. Anxiety bubbles up under her rib cage. As long as no one figures out what’s gone wrong, they should be fine. 

A woman looks down the bridge of her nose at Fitzherbert as she passes. Cassandra steps on his foot before he can do anything stupid.

“Watch it.” He hisses.

“You’re the royal consort.” She says around a thin-lipped smile. “Act like it.”

The Queen gives her speech welcoming her daughter home, with all the formalities it entails, when the guards positioned around the door start fidgeting. 

“I’m going to check on something.” She whispers. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

She grabs her dress and makes her way across the ballroom floor. Stan catches her stare, and sets the but of his spear on the polished floor. “Cassandra.” He greets. “How can I help you?” 

“Why’ve you been side-eyeing the hallway for the last twenty minutes? Is there something going on I should be aware of?”

“It’s none of your concern.” He reminds her. “You’re not part of the Watch.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t start with that. I’m responsible for the Princess, now, and we both know I’m more than qualified.”

Stan holds up under her glare, but Pete folds immediately, like he always does. She suppresses a satisfied smirk as he sighs and wilts. “There’s - well, something of a jailbreak going on.”

“A _what?”_ She hisses, and then immediately lowers her voice. “Then what are you doing here?” 

“Protecting the guests.” Stan whispers. “Don’t cause a commotion.”

“Oh.” She says, gathering up her skirts. “I’m gonna start _something.”_

The dungeons are just as dark and depressing as they always are, and the main door is open, exposing the jail cells to the rest of the castle. The drawback of keeping the prisoners so close to the heart of the capitol was that it ran the risk of incidents like this.

She shuts the door firmly behind her and starts down the candle-lit hall. Whoever got out couldn’t have gotten far.

She turns the sharp corner, avoiding a jutting of stone, only to catch the back of a pink filled dress disappearing into the adjacent hall.

“Wait!” She calls, running after her. 

The woman turns, her upper lip curled in an undignified scowl. The dress suggests high nobility; maybe she’d been a party-goer. But then she shakes the wig loose, and pulls out a sword from under her dress.

She grabs the candlestick holder against the wall by instinct, raising it up to block. Steel grates on steel. Her arm trembles, and she jumps out of the way as the woman kicks out.

Cassandra squints at her through the darkness, heartbeat racing in her ears. “Wait, you’re-”

“Lady Caine.” She grins, her smile a knife in the light. She flicks a lock of dark hair over her shoulder. “A pleasure to meet you.”

She swings the sword down again, fast enough that it knicks her cheek as she stumbles out of its range.

“Can’t say the same.” She grounds out, and sweeps at her legs.

In the distance, footsteps echo. Reinforcements.

Caine grins, wolfish. “That’s my cue.”

She turns, and before Cassandra can pursue her, she disappears into the labyrinth of tunnels and the hallway is flooded with guards. 

“Cass!” Someone calls. “What happened-!”

She wipes halfheartedly at the blood dripping down her cheek. She’d _love_ to know, too.

Rapunzel tugs at her hair. It’s a bad habit, one she missed when her hair was short. 

Her coronation had lasted all of an hour before everything went wrong. That has to be some sort of sign, doesn’t it? That must be some indication that maybe she isn’t ready for this, after all. Maybe Gothel was right, and she really isn’t capable. 

“This was clearly a coordinated attack.” Mom pinches the bridge of her nose, and gestures to the castle diagram. 

“I thought it was strange…” Captain says. “That so many notorious criminals could be apprehended in such a short window of time. That woman - Lady Caine - she snuck into the party register posing as a duchess from a small trading district called Quintonia. She proceeded to knock out the guards assigned to the dungeon and freed those we suspect to be her colleagues. At this point Cassandra encountered her in the halls and fought briefly, before she disappeared. As far as we're aware, nothing was stolen.”

“... The treasure of Herz de Sonne.” Mom says. “There’s a corridor that leads to the throne room that way. But how would she know that?”

The meeting descends into uneasy silence. 

"Cass, we need to figure this out, like, _soon_."

Cassandra turns away from bandaging her cheek. It might scar, by the looks of it. "You really think it's the best idea to leave now?"

"It's not sneaking out! And he doesn't strictly need to know. I just want to see if there's anything we can do about it now." She leans forward on her elbows. "I heard some of the servants talking about a - a wizard, or something, from Old Corona. They said his name was Varian, or something. I think it might be worth a shot."

"Wait." Cassandra frowns. "Did you say Varian? Like that kid we met back at the rocks?"

Rapunzel brightens considerably. "Oh, yeah! We already know him, even better! C'mon, Cass, let's go see if he can help!"

"I really doubt-"

But there was no deterring her.

Underneath the hissing cesspool of sound, Varian hears whispering. 

His thoughts tug around his head like feathers, blackened and burned, raining down like ash. The ground crackles beneath his feet, snapping, hissing, crackling like coals, cold like ice. His breath freezes into a sheet of vapor. Something deep in his chest aches, and aches. He breathes carefully around its pull, like talons wrapped around his ribcage, a burgeoning wound festering in his lungs. 

_Come closer._

He suppresses his shudder. His hands tremble at his sides. 

The stones burst from the ground, lancing through the overcast sky that seems to stretch and stretch and stretch around the horizon. Black stones sink into the dead, flat earth, wrapped around a mantle of hedging bedrock. Just miles and miles and miles of _nothing._

The ground trembles beneath him. A voice hisses, and the world waits on bated breath. The dirt itself trembles with anticipation.

An exhale; cold mist blows with the wind and wreathes him in fog. 

_Come, child._

He can feel them in the earth, the rocks, hidden teeth of the earth. His heartbeat surges into his heart, thudding in his throat. The ground rips open again, and-

There’s a wet thud. 

Slowly, he turns.

The mist parts like a curtain, and there’s Dad, the tip of a rock pointing through his chest. He reaches a hand towards him as blood soaks his chest-

“Varian…” He says. “How could you?”

_Varian._ It whispers, laughter on its tongue. _How could you?_

“No.” He drops to his knees, screws his eyes shut, slams his hands over his ears, curls down towards the earth. “No no no no no _no-”_

“Varian?”

A cold hand shakes his shoulder.

“Varian!”

He snaps upright, inhaling sharply as he pushes his chair back away from his desk. The paper he was working on - the research he’s compiling for the rocks - floats down from where it was stuck to his cheek. A pencil clatters to the floor, Ruddiger startles and leaps off his lap, and Dad stands over him with an eyebrow raised.

“... you alright?”

He flexes his fingers around the chair’s arms. Dad is perfectly fine and whole, he’s in his lab, where he must’ve fallen asleep, everything is… fine. Everything is fine.

Dad is staring at him.

“Oh yeah! Yeah, I’m fine.” He laughs nervously, hastily collecting his research in an orderly pile and shuffling the nondescript, less ostentatious papers in front of the ones most likely to get in trouble. “I must’ve just, uh, fell asleep while I was working.”

Ruddiger makes a displeased noise from under the table. Varian wilts.

“Aw, I’m sorry buddy. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Ruddiger accepts that apology and hops back up on his lap, curling up like a cat. 

“Fell asleep in the lab again? Do you do this every time I go away?” 

“Well.” He spins on his chair, standing up and stretching out his legs. “Minus the whole scaring Ruddiger thing.”

Dad doesn’t find his humor nearly as comforting as he does.

“Right.” He replies. “Try not to do that. You need to take care of yourself.”

Varian hums, waving his concerns away. What harm is a little napping in the workspace? Other than the back pain he was going to have for the rest of the day, and the sore throat building up from the cold, he was perfectly well and fine. 

“How long have you been home?”

“Just over half an hour.”

He'd come home a day later than expected, then. 

“Mmm.” He rubs the corner of his eye before combing his hair out of his face. The events of the previous night flash through his head. “Oh, um-”

“Edith will be over for tea soon.” Dad interrupts, casting a look his way that makes him want to sink into the earth. “She said she had something to discuss with me. Do you have any idea what that might be about?”

That’s his I-know-you-messed-something-up voice, except this time he really _didn’t._

“I didn’t do anything, I promise!” He defends, starting towards the stairs. “Really! I seriously don’t have anything to do with them, it’s not my fault!”

Dad’s brow furrows. “What do you mean by them?” 

Varian fidgets, pulling Ruddiger under his chin. “The- the rocks. I meant to tell you right when you got home, but, um, yeah. One of them shot up in Edith’s yard yesterday when I was helping with her heating but I swear I didn’t do anything-”

Dad doesn’t look like he’s listening to him anymore. His gaze is fixed on some point just above his shoulder, his frown accentuating the stress lines carved around his mouth. “You saw the rocks only yesterday?”

“I… yeah?” He perches forward on his toes. “Why? Do you know what they are?” 

“I’m going to talk with Edith.” He replies instead. “Take care of your morning chores, alright? It’s already one in the afternoon.”

“It’s what?” He sputters. It wasn’t like him to sleep that late, no wonder he’d come to check in on him. “Yeah, yeah, I will, sorry-”

He spins on his heel, heading towards the field as Ruddiger circles and settles across his shoulder, purring. Something heavy settles in his stomach, but he can’t put words to it quite yet. 

Ruddiger bats him with a paw, and he resumes the mindless tedium of scratching his ear. 

“I guess…” He tastes copper on the back of his teeth. The nightmare burns against the back of his eyes with vicious clarity, stained camellia red. “We should just hurry up with our work, then.”

“Ugh.” He mumbles, kicking the dirt off his boots on the flat concrete step outside the door. His back hurts from spending so long hunched over the wheelbarrow; he’s too young to have joint problems. Ruddiger ditched him a while ago to scour the ground for leftover apple cores and cracked walnuts left behind by squirrels. He much prefers lab work to back-breaking labor. He has absolutely no idea what merit Dad sees in it.

The door creaks open on rusted hinges, webbed with frost. That looks like it’s going to be fixed soon, which takes away from the time he has to study the rocks. Upstairs, he can hear Dad talking with Edith, although it sounds a little more aggressive than the average neighborly chat. 

He winces at the harsh sound of Seliyan, like glass shattering on concrete over the uneasy silence. He’s not entirely fluent, but he catches a few words, none of them good.

He hovers awkwardly by the stairs for a minute, unsure whether or not to intervene. On one hand, he wanted to know what they were talking about, and they were much less likely to reveal that information to him if they didn’t know he was there.

“Varian!” Edith calls. 

Cover blown. 

He jogs halfway up the stairs. They are, in fact, talking over tea, which is only appropriate for any discussion the mayor undertakes, but Dad is massaging his temples and Edith is openly scowling. 

“Um… yeah? What’re you guys talking about?”

She rolls her eyes at him. _“Still not fluent?”_

Heat rushes to his face as he stumbles for a response. _“I’m working on it!”_

“It’s none of your concern, Varian. Are you done with your chores?”

He shifts uneasily. “You’re talking about the rocks, aren’t you?”

Edith definitely knows what’s going on with them, if the way she spoke of them was any indication. Her fingers tighten around her mug until the blood bleeds out of them. 

She mumbles something to Dad that he misses. He rakes his hands through his hair.

“It’s not necessary, Edith.” Dad levels him in his heavy gaze, the one he only falls back into when Aunt Adira drops by. “Varian, I want you to stay away from those rocks. They’re dangerous.” 

He frowns. “What do you mean, dangerous? What do you guys know about it?” He bites his lip. “Are they from… before?”

Edith opens her mouth, before someone knocks on the door. Dad frowns.

“I’ll get it.” He says, and jumps down the stairs by two. 

He opens the door, only to see the Princess and her guard standing on their doorstep. 

Edith barks a string of foreign curses.

The guard - Cassandra - crosses her arms over her chest. “So you’re the guy everybody is so afraid of?”

“Varian-” He pauses when he sees their guests. “I- your Highness?”

Rapunzel claps her hands together brightly. “Um, hi, Mr. Varian’s dad! Do you mind if we borrow your son for a little bit?”

Edith bursts out laughing. 

_“What trouble did you get yourself into this time, boy?”_

“None!” He replies. “Dad, can I go? I promise I’ll… explain this later.”

“We won't be long!” Rapunzel promises. “We heard he’s a scientist and want to know if there’s any way to get rid of my hair.” She gestures to the infamous hair, tied up into a braid. 

Dad just shakes his head. “Of course, your Highness.”

“Thanks, Dad!” He closes the door before either of them can get another word out.

“My - my lab is this way.” He explains, and leads them down the dirt path, ground prickling with early permafrost. “I, um, wasn’t expecting you guys to come back? Sorry about my Dad, you… caught him off guard.”

“What language was that?” Rapunzel asks, bouncing back on her heels. He realizes belatedly that she’s not wearing shoes. 

“Saporian?” Cassandra raises an eyebrow, mildly amused. He shakes his head.

“No, no, it’s… my family’s from up North, it’s mostly just colloquial stuff, you probably wouldn’t know it.” 

He leads them down to the lab, opening the heavy oak door. They both wrinkle their noses at the smell, which was probably the result of the last sulfide test he was conducting. Cassandra’s gaze sweeps over the dark lab with a careful scrutiny. “So, what’s up with your reputation?”

He winces, and bushes aside a counter full of empty beakers he hadn't had the chance to put away the night before. “I have, um… a history of my inventions exploding. But, um! People tolerate me because I dabble in apothecary, which is useful, y’know? Um.” He shoves his papers to the side of his desk. “I didn’t know you were coming. Why… are you here?”

“That was kind of the point.” Cassandra replies, one hand on her hip. “And we’re here, so you can figure out _this.”_

She gestures to the hair. The magic hair, right. 

“As far as I can tell, it hasn’t retained any of its magic healing.” Rapunzel adds. “At least, it didn’t work when I tried to heal Cass’ paper cut.”

She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t need to heal that, anyways, stop moping.”

Varian rolls over his magnifying lens. “I can look at it from under here. There are a few other things I want to test, too. Um, what were its properties before it got cut the first time?”

Rapunzel lies back against the bench, shivering at the cold. “Um, it was this long, and if I sang then I could heal physical afflictions, but also… prevent aging. If I cut it, the strand would turn brown and wouldn’t be able to heal anymore. And now it’s unbreakable. Like, it won’t cut. We tried. Cass threw an axe at me.”

“Don’t phrase it like that.” 

“Hmm.” He mumbles, lowering the glass. “Weird. Wow, and it wasn’t indestructible before? There’s no sign of breakage or wearing anywhere, and…” He narrows his eyes. “It glows, if you’re looking closely. An enzyme behind bioluminescence…? I’m surprised it bends, and it isn’t heavier than it is.”

“Really?” She blinks. “Why?” 

"It's odd for something so thin to be so hard to break. Here, c'mere, this will give us a better idea of what's going on." He gestures to the machine in the corner of the room, and Cassandra grimaces. 

"Are you sure that's… safe?"

"Oh, yeah, it's perfectly fine."

The gears whir and spin in the background. Varian taps his finger on the lever. "Okay, I think that should be good, but I won't be able to interpret the results for a little while. It’s processing, here, just, let me go grab it real quick. Don’t touch anything.”

He darts out of his lab and into the tunnels. He hasn’t exactly figured out their purpose, yet. As far as he can tell, they’re not naturally occurring. The stone in the tunnels wasn’t made of limestone or dolomite, so that made the natural percolation of acidic water into cracked bedrock unlikely. Ultimately, that speculation was irrelevant, though, because it gave way to the river, which was a much more important asset to his village. 

By the time he gets back to the lab, it’s been several minutes. 

He opens the door, and the Princess - Rapunzel, and Cassandra stand in the middle of the lab, staring wide-eyed at the black rock peaking through the floorboards. 

He drops the paper in his haste to kneel beside it.

“It’s growing.” Rapunzel says. “That’s… that’s so freaky.”

Cassandra frowns at him. “It stopped when you came in.”

“When did it start?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“Well…” He frowns. “Don’t touch it. I’ll… figure something out.”

He wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to do, but at the very least, now he had a small sample in the close vicinity.

“Ah,” Rapunzel says. “We should probably get going soon. Thanks for the help!”

They both rush to the door, and he doesn’t even have the chance to tell them that they never got the results. 

She awakens with the fragments of a nightmare burned onto the back of her eyes. The view of the city from her window, burning streets crowned with black stone. In the center of the destruction stood a familiar figure, wrapped in a grey cloak. 

But it’s just a dream, so when Mom knocks on her door, she lets her in.

She takes another look at her hair like she must _know,_ but she carefully side-steps around the subject, sitting gracefully at the end of her bed, and offers her a leather-bound notebook, pressed gently into her lap. Rapunzel looks up at her with wide eyes. 

“When I was your age,” She says. “I wanted to find my purpose, find myself. I looked everywhere for those answers, you know. I travelled the world before I met your father and settled down here.”

“Really?” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and opens the book.

“Me and my sister, Willow, went everywhere we could think of. Back then, I was headstrong, and she was a free spirit. Nobody ever could get her to settle down. I think she’s happier that way, though. She writes me every few months, telling me about all the amazing things she’s found.”

Rapunzel smiles. “That sounds wonderful.”

She takes a deep breath. “I understand that the coronation was not… ideal. I wanted to check in and see how you were doing, and if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable.”

An escape peters out on her tongue.

“And that’s why I decided to give you this. I want you to fill all the pages you can.” She smiles. “Whatever makes you happy, figure it out, and write them down.” 

She sinks back into her warm embrace, and takes a deep breath. It was going to have to come out at one point or another, it might as well be now, on her own terms.

“Mom,” She says. “I have something I should tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm changing Lady Caine's roll because it seemed like she was being built up to something more... idk, relevant? And also her plan didn't really make sense to me bc, alright, revenge and all that, I can get behind that, but what did she plan to do then?? Like you can't just wheel the monach out of the castle in a jailcart and expect nothing to happen lmao... like ma'am what was the next step
> 
> In related news, there's no way the Dark Kingdom didn't have its own language, being that isolated, and as funny as the name the Dark Kingdom is I am going to give it an actual name
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter! This is just setting the scene, and next chapter we'll get into how this changes things for everyone and more of everyone's accounts
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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